Tyranid 2010 Tactica Discussion

[bebe]

You can play Nids comfortably up to 1850 - they still do fine at 1000 points as there are a few rather sick builds. HQs are not a problem at 100 - take a Terv, Prime or PoM depending on how you want to build your list. Doom on his own at 1250 and less is sick. Back to Shrikes - they need cover. I play them with dual boneswords/rending joined by my Parasite and shielded by Gargoyles. It is decent at lower point levels. But two or three Terv lists can be even better.

[Doomseer]

Hey all, I thought I'd just get some opinion on an idea I had for my 1750 list. I just dug out an old Zoanthrope model and thought about using it as the Doom. My list is normally as follows:

Tervigon - Catalyst/Onslaught/AG/TS/Cluster
11 Termagants
Tervigon - Catalyst/Onslaught/AG/TS/Cluster
3 Zoanthropes
3 Venomthropes
3 Hive Guard
20 Gargoyles - AG/TS
20 Gargoyles - AG/TS
Trygon Prime - AG
Trygon - AG

Basically I'd swap the Zoanthropes for Doom and boost the Termagant unit to 29 with the remaining points. I generally have the army deployed as a blob to benefit from the Venomthropes and Tervigons. I thought that putting the Doom somewhere in this mix might be interesting and figured someone here must have tried it?

[Cosmic_Girl]

Hi,

Doom loses a lot if not deployed in a mycetic spore because his AOE attack doesn't really get utilised. You could always just hope you roll good dice with your Cataclysm in order to power up, but for the extra points, it's almost always worth it. For that reason Doom doesn't work as well in a "blob" style army that wants to stick together as it gives your opponent time to pick him off. Currently your ammended list lacks a delivery mechanism.

Cosmic.

[bebe]

Doom needs a pod. So assuming you add one is he worthwhile? Now there are a lot of naysayers to Doom out there:

Cons:
Inconsistent as he is dice reliant
Easily neutered and killed without inv. save
Not effective against heavy mech lists
Requires a lot of support

Now I see all his pros:
Good against Orks, Tau, Bikes, Terminators, Purifiers, Necrons, etc.
Wonderful Distraction
Can hurt some armies that have no counter

Does Doom have to make its points back to be effective ... no. Just as a deterrent and distraction and fire magnet he has his uses. Do you have other souurces of AT because you cannot consider him a reliable one and you need to demech
something for him to be truly effective. Also he works best with infiltrating Stealers and Broodlord which your list lacks. Don't know why you are fielding forty gargs either. You have no Flyrant or PoM (I'm not going to get into another
discussion on this guy's uses. I like him). Nids are tough army to play. They are unforgiving in this new mech meta. Your list has no means to stopo mech effectively. Take out the Tervigons early ( easily done in one turn of shooting by some
lists) and you will fold. One Tervigon and a squad of termagants is not enough troops. Gargs should be hormagants.

[Vsurma]

What point levels do you think Tyranids really hit their stride? I'm got a fair record for tyranids at 1750, but I don't know if it's like a sweet spot for nids or just a quark of my local meta.

Tyranid ranged anti-tank maxes out at 9 hive guard so the higher you go in terms of game points the more difficult it gets.

[PinkDefiler]

The Doom ist just plain fun for me. Either he works or he fails miserably, doesnt really matter. The reaction of my opponents alone, and the possibility that I take him in the list is worth the points alone. They tend to...well, "doom" him, in every possible way, cause in the last games he earned himself some respect and fear. Especially vs. Grey Knights and Necrons. Last thing I remember he sucked the brains out of 2 Terminator Squads and basically destroyed a 800 points value.
Since then he is a no brainer for me.

[Infidel]

Hi you mind-devouring intractable alien bio menace out there

Long story short, a new player showed up and took a list that had me raise a few eyebrows, mostly because it's unlike most things ive seen.

It goes:

Swarmlord + Lashwhip Guard

3x Hiveguards
3x Hiveguards
Venomthropes

3~4x Tervigons and a bunch of tiny bug
One squad of out-flanking Stealers

2x Tyrannofex, a secondary weapon with lots of shots
A squad of Biovore

It was extremely well painted but goes against a lot of the 'common wisdom' the internet would have me believe. Mostly it's the Tyrannofex that caught my eye, never seen it played before.

So the list huddles up into a compact ball, bubble-wraps the big bugs with small bugs Tyrannofex is practically impossible to kill from afar and poison gaunts and Swarmlord slaughters stuff that gets close. Everything has cover and everything has FNP with venom giving things defensive buffs. Those biovore can put out some incredible amount of templates from afar too....

It feels like a very solid list, just wondering whether anything like that has been played effectively before.

[Carnage]

That's almost the cookie-cutter list. Besides the venomthropes and biovores it's the basic net list really. The assault 20 shot weapon on the Tyrannofexes? That would be both uncommon and stupid.

You also listed close to 2250 points worth of stuff.

[Vipoid]

That's almost the cookie-cutter list. Besides the venomthropes and biovores it's the basic net list really. The assault 20 shot weapon on the Tyrannofexes? That would be both uncommon and stupid.

Indeed, it certainly bears close resemblance to a lot of the nid lists I've seen.

The only thing in it that's close to 'original' is equiping you tyrannofexes with an abysmal gun. And there's a good reason why that doesn't appear in many lists...

[itcamefromthedeep]

The assault 20 shot weapon on the Tyrannofexes?

He said the "secondary" weapon, which sounds like a stinger salvo rather than cluster spines. That's a defensible choice for a unit that will be spending its time shooting at vehicles.

[Infidel]

I have little to no knowledge about nids. No one I know plays nids so :/

As for the Tyrannofex, it had a S10 gun and a bunch of high-strength shots that was able to punch through AV10. I'm not sure what the second gun on the Tyrannofex is but it's definately not a 20 shot weapon, unless that's 20 shots worth of S5+.

The kind of Nids list ive fought usually has Trygons, Hiveguards/Zoenthrope pods and Primes as HQ with shooty warriors, Stealers and occassionally, devigaunt pods. It's probably a very typical Nidzilla list, but I havn't faced one in a long time, as a matter of fact, probably since GK came around.

[itcamefromthedeep]

As for the Tyrannofex, it had a S10 gun and a bunch of high-strength shots that was able to punch through AV10. I'm not sure what the second gun on the Tyrannofex is but it's definately not a 20 shot weapon, unless that's 20 shots worth of S5+.

That would be a Stinger Salvo. 18" S5 AP4 assault 4. In addition to the big gun a Tyrannofex gets either a stinger salvo or cluster spines and then a flamer-like weapon called a thorax swarm (of which there are three flavors).

The possibility of a stinger salvo was ignored because the alternative is a S5 AP- large blast. Common wisdom is that the blast is better, to the point where people are told that the other option might as well be ignored. However, it may be preferable to pump up the off-chance of glancing something than have a blast that will rarely be used on clumps of infantry infantry because the creature should really be shooting at things other than clumps of infantry.

[Infidel]

That sounds about right, because the guard player complained that his chimera died to the secondary weapon and not the S10 tyranid railgun.

The list is clocking in somewhere around 2000~, but it seems to me like a solid solid list without much exploitable weakness other than maybe mobility. I have literally no clue about how to deal with it with my crons, 2000pt or otherwise. The S10 gun mounted on platforms I can't shut down with glances will molest me, and NF wouldn't benefit me much as Nid guns tend to be reasonably short-ranged.

I can probably snipe the Venomthropes and then use the lances to start picking off Swarmlord & Co and peel away the Gaunts with Tesla then hope my CC unit brings enough oomph to take out a few MC in H2H. But cover and FNP, I'm not liking my chances.

[Vipoid]

The list is clocking in somewhere around 2000~, but it seems to me like a solid solid list without much exploitable weakness other than maybe mobility. I have literally no clue about how to deal with it with my crons, 2000pt or otherwise. The S10 gun mounted on platforms I can't shut down with glances will molest me, and NF wouldn't benefit me much as Nid guns tend to be reasonably short-ranged.

Well, to start with, I certainly wouldn't use the stormlord against this army. I'd probably use either Trazyn (MSS are nice, and he also has a weapon to take out hordes of gaunts) or an Overlord with MSS and warscythe (I suppose you could consider Gautlet of fire, but I imagine warscythe would be better).

In fact, MSS could be very useful against nids - either as deterrants, or as outright counters to MCs. Even the swarmlord will attack himself or his hive guard 50% of the time, and if he inflicts even a single wound, he'll kill himself outright. I'd strongly consider putting some MSS lords in your army.

Lance crypteks and heavy destroyers would definatly be a good idea - no nid MCs have invulnerable saves at range, so you'll wound on a 2+, and at best they'll be getting a 5+ cover save from the venomthropes (which these weapons can easily snipe). One idea would be to shoot the swarmlord enough to kill his guard(s). This will prevent him from using gaunts in front to gain cover, and also mean that he can't avoid contacting a MSS lord or overlord, by putting a tyrant guard in BTB with him.

I can probably snipe the Venomthropes and then use the lances to start picking off Swarmlord & Co and peel away the Gaunts with Tesla then hope my CC unit brings enough oomph to take out a few MC in H2H. But cover and FNP, I'm not liking my chances.

Out of interest, what are you referring to when you talk about your CC unit?

[jifel]

Yeah, that Tyranids list is fairly close to the "generally accepted" Nids net list. I run something similar to that, but with only two Tervigons and no Swarmlord, and instead having 2x20 Hormagaunts. Venomthropes are actually really good in my experience, as they are often low on target priority and can be joined by a Tyranid prime to really toughen the unit. If you are playing against a Venomthrope it really is worth it to kill it first turn if you can.

[Infidel]

Out of interest, what are you referring to when you talk about your CC unit?

A fighty 'blob', DJ3 runs

Anrakyr
Zahndrekh
Obyron
2x Scythe/MSS Lords
5x Immortals

My shooty blob
Imhotekh
Zahndrekh
Obyron
2x Scythe/MSS Lord
4x Destructotek
1x Chronotek

In both instances, the 2x MSS/Scythe Lords makes up the deterrant against the big things and Obyron can single handedly carve through squalds of smaller guys by himself. I wouldn't commit them to fight the Swarmlord, given the choice, I'd always take him out from afar. Close up however, they'll put out about a dozen attacks with Warscythe.

They're plenty smashy but I wouldn't want to pit the against the Swarmlord in anycase.

[Souleater]

That Nid army is very slow and compact.

If your army is fast enough (either teleporting or vehicles) that you should be able to take advantage of the extra space he's leaving on the board to out-manoeuvre him. Work out which bits of his shooting you need to deal with and focus fire them. Often with Nids you can position yourself so that only one or two of their units are actually in range/LOS of your units.

Venomthropes are a pain but you can kill them with a single S8 hit. Enough shots will take them down. That gets rid of a significant set of buffs. Biovores might be dealt with by a VoD assassin squad.

At a pinch, Tomb Blades with the S6 Blast weapons could be used to whittle away the gaunt screen, but I'm not sure if that isn't an over-reaction to the gribblies.

Ideally, I would say that you should be playing for objectives because as this plays against his style of army. In a slugfest (which probably means a firefight) FNP on so many creatures might give him the edge over Necron Resilience.

[Vipoid]

A fighty 'blob', DJ3 runs

Anrakyr
Zahndrekh
Obyron
2x Scythe/MSS Lords
5x Immortals

I'm not trying to be offensive here, but I honestly wouldn't look at that and think it was a CC unit.

I mean, you've got 10 models, and more than half of them suck badly in CC:

- Immortals are basically the old Necron Warriors (and we all know how amazing they were in combat...)
- Zahndrekh has 3 attacks at WS4 with no power weapon.


Now, I'll admit that it has some decent stuff:

- Anrakyr and your 2 lords have a total of 7 warscythe attacks between them, but at WS4.
- Obyron has 3 more warscythe attacks at WS6

however, the thing for me is that all your attacks are made at I2, and the only one of your units with an invulnerable save sucks at CC. it just seems that you're relying heavily on those MSS for protection against other dedicated CC units. Also, for a unit that costs 715pts, it just doesn't look survivable.

[Infidel]

That Nid army is very slow and compact.

If your army is fast enough (either teleporting or vehicles) that you should be able to take advantage of the extra space he's leaving on the board to out-manoeuvre him. Work out which bits of his shooting you need to deal with and focus fire them. Often with Nids you can position yourself so that only one or two of their units are actually in range/LOS of your units.

Venomthropes are a pain but you can kill them with a single S8 hit. Enough shots will take them down. That gets rid of a significant set of buffs. Biovores might be dealt with by a VoD assassin squad.

At a pinch, Tomb Blades with the S6 Blast weapons could be used to whittle away the gaunt screen, but I'm not sure if that isn't an over-reaction to the gribblies.

Ideally, I would say that you should be playing for objectives because as this plays against his style of army. In a slugfest (which probably means a firefight) FNP on so many creatures might give him the edge over Necron Resilience.

The Tyranid will try to take advantage of its compactness, ala deploying the objectives as close together as possible and try to camp them all at the same time. I havn't played a 2500pt cron list yet, but the only guys that are effective from afar are the Lances and HGC, tesla will just bounce off those FNP T6 3+ bodies, although destructor's arcing ability might actually do something given how much stuff is given to be within 6".

In anycase, I think the best thing to do is still to deal with the Swarmlord with the heavy duty stuff and try to smash face in CC, Wraiths, Blobs or otherwise. Repair barges helps the warriors tremendously with attrition and Spyders are much more cost-efficient in a fight than most Nid monsters.

Well, when I get around to finghting him I'll let you guys know.

[DJ3]

I'm not trying to be offensive here, but I honestly wouldn't look at that and think it was a CC unit.

Luckily, this is exactly the goal. A couple weeks ago I practically wrote an essay about whether or not people will continue to underestimate the CC ability of my Teleportation Blob in the Necron thread, because the expectation of defeating it is a huge part of what's making it successful. I'm becoming worried that people will eventually catch on and stop actively engaging it, and if they do I could see it losing a lot of effectiveness.

however, the thing for me is that all your attacks are made at I2, and the only one of your units with an invulnerable save sucks at CC. it just seems that you're relying heavily on those MSS for protection against other dedicated CC units. Also, for a unit that costs 715pts, it just doesn't look survivable.

The mechanics of a combat involving three Independent Characters (and two Mindshackles) make things far more complicated than they'd seem at first glance. Anything short of Grey Knights (due to Force Weapons on every model) has very slim chances of killing any of the ICs before I2, because in most cases only one or two of the involved models will be able to target each IC. Of all the times my unit has been charged (and they've been charged by practically everything) I think the only time I've lost one of the ICs prior to making their attacks was Anrakyr going down to a Whip Wraith that decided to roll a bucket of Rends on him. It's slightly more common to lose my Lords before they get to swing, but still not common on the whole, as they get to use the Immortals as ablative wounds--not to mention, the Mindshackles will go off either way, and that's their real purpose.

Look at it this way--even in a dedicated CC unit, would you expect a single model to be able to cause three wounds on T5 2+ or 3+ prior to I2? Who can do that? A Terminator with Lightning Claws and Preferred Enemy only averages 1.66. Throw in Furious Charge and you're at 2.25. A Bloodcrusher, only 1.33. In the vast majority of cases, the only way to pick them out is to directly engage them with another IC, and even then, it's hardly easy--you have to work up to something like a Thunderwolf Lord with a Wolf Claw (3 wounds exactly) before the odds start getting into your favor, whereas more common ICs like Vulkan (2.22) or an Emperor's Champion (2.37) would fall short. And as you've pointed out, Zahndrekh is completely useless in terms of CC--but he's 2+/3++, and something is going to be forced to attack him anyway. When performing Assaults, Zahndrekh gets tossed at whatever is deemed most dangerous--when receiving Assaults, the MSS Lords act similarly, whenever possible.

The placement of each individual model becomes so overwhelmingly important in a combat like that that it's borderline impossible to theorycraft the outcomes--but I assure you, the unit is incredibly survivable. And that's coming from someone who only played Fatecrusher previously.

Man, how did I end up rambling about Necrons in the Tyranid thread, what's going on here.